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Pressure
Pressure was a competitor robot that appeared in the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. It fought exclusively in the New Blood Championship, reaching the Heat Final before losing to Cedric Slammer. A heavily-revised version of the robot also attempted to enter for Series 7 of Robot Wars, but failed to qualify after losing its qualifier battle. Team captain Mike Hamilton-Macy would later join Team Big Brother when they entered The Swarm into Series 10. Design Pressure was a black, semi-cylindrical robot with a 2mm steel shell and chassis, inline four-wheel drive and five CO2-powered pneumatic weapons. These weapons included a front flipper with a lifting capacity of 110kg, a rear lifter, a pair of self-righting panels on each side, and a pair of interchangeable axes concealed within a fin-like plate on the robot's top panel. Both the flipper and lifter featured spiked tips which could allow them to cause light damage to opponents, while the flipper also featured sharp teeth on its underside so it could grip opponents and act as a clamp when closed. According to the Team Wind Bags website, the axes were either a short 'cleaver' or a full-length 'club'.http://web.archive.org/web/20040616011647/http://www.windbags.co.uk/pages/robwars2.htm Pressure also initially featured a set of six spikes along each of its self-righting panels, although these were removed before fighting as they put the robot 1kg over the weight limit. Pressure also featured side skirts to prevent flippers from getting underneath. Qualification Work on Pressure began in 2000, and the robot was originally intended to enter Series 5 and built for the 80kg weight limit. Upon hearing the producers had increased the weight limit from 80 to 100kg, Team Wind Power decided not to enter Pressure until Series 6, so they could bring the robot's weight closer to the new limit.http://web.archive.org/web/20040616011430/http://www.windbags.co.uk/pages/robwars1.htm However, Pressure also failed to enter Series 6, as Team Wind Power missed the qualifying deadline due to making various repairs and improvements to the robot's weapons and drive systems, including the switch from eight- to four-wheel drive.http://web.archive.org/web/20040616011647/http://www.windbags.co.uk/pages/robwars2.htm This meant that Pressure would not apply for a series of Robot Wars until the New Blood Championship during Extreme 2. Following its appearance in the New Blood Championship, Pressure was rebuilt for Series 7 to feature just two lifters (the front one being made larger) and a larger 180 degree axe, as well as being repainted blue, yellow and red to make it 'show up better in the arena'.http://web.archive.org/web/20040603095532/http://www.windbags.co.uk/pages/robwars4.htm In its qualifierVideo of Pressure's Series 7 qualifier, it fought Thunderpants, King B Powerworks and M2. Pressure started promisingly, driving into M2 and lifting it up. It pushed the sluggish Thunderpants across the arena, although this gave M2 an opportunity to throw Pressure straight onto the top of Thunderpants. M2 tossed Pressure forwards, and King B Powerworks edged it backwards. Pressure fled, but was shoved into the arena wall by King B Powerworks. Pressure took time to lift the beaten Thunderpants and push it into the arena wall, but this afforded M2 the opportunity to throw Pressure over, against the wall. Pressure was up-ended against the side of Thunderpants, and had to flip repeatedly to free itself, over twenty seconds later, self-righting with its axe. Pressure held off, only attacking King B Powerworks when M2 was distracted. This cost it dearly, and M2 flipped Pressure onto the arena wall, from where it could not self-right. Pressure has been rebuilt twice during Robot Wars' hiatus, but the team did not enter Series 8 because they believed that their robot was not up to current standards, and did not have the time to upgrade Pressure for the new series.http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/threads/12907-bbc-robot-wars/page4 Robot History Extreme 2 In the first round of the final Heat of the New Blood Championship, Pressure was placed up against Bash Gordon and Cedric Slammer. In the battle, Bash Gordon stayed largely out of the way at first, leaving Pressure to sustain damage from Cedric Slammer, only sustaining a mild ram from Bash Gordon itself. Pressure tried to get away, but was too sluggish, and continued to be rammed from behind by Cedric Slammer. Meanwhile, Bash Gordon was only spinning in circles with its axe not working. Bash Gordon eventually fell into the pit of oblivion, so in spite of being immobile, Pressure progressed to the next round with Cedric Slammer, despite taking damage from Mr. Psycho off-screen which caused its axe weapon to jam. In the second round, Pressure was drawn against Piranha. Pressure took advantage of Piranha's inaccurate axe blows to lift and slam it into Matilda's CPZ, where the house robot's flywheel flayed part of Piranha's shell. Piranha fought back, pushing Pressure towards Shunt's CPZ this time, where some axe blows rained down on Pressure, however little damage was caused. A pushing match ensued between the pair, with neither machine's weapons doing significant damage at all. The battle ended in a close, somewhat controversial judges' decision in favour of Pressure due to the damage Piranha sustained by Matilda. What wasn't shown in the televised edit was Pressure landing an axe blow while it had Piranha lifted up - otherwise the axe largely jammed due to lasting damage from its opening melee. Pressure was sent through to the Heat Final, where it fought Cedric Slammer again. Cedric Slammer almost immediately caused damage to Pressure's front scoop, but Pressure was quite aggressive, pushing Cedric Slammer around the arena and into a CPZ, although it was vacant. Pressure was scratched and took small damage from the glancing attacks from Cedric Slammer, until one of Pressure's side flippers wouldn't close due to the damage taken. Despite all the damage Pressure had sustained, it finished the battle on top, pushing Cedric Slammer into another CPZ where Sir Killalot picked it up and flung it across the arena. Pressure took too much damage to sway the judges' decision towards it, sending Cedric Slammer through to the New Blood Grand Final. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 2 *Losses: 1 Series Record skink.gif|Team Wind Powers' featherweight, Skink 180px-Iron Awe 3.jpg|Iron-Awe 3 L aka White Knight.gif|Iron-Awe 3 as L White knight.jpg|L as White Knight Outside Robot Wars Pressure has been rebuilt twice since Robot Wars. The first time was in 2005, when Pressure was turned into a trapezoid shaped, polycarbonate-armoured robot with a single flipper. This version was retired in 2007 because of damage cause by Kan-Opener and Terrorhurtz. Later that year, the team created a new version, a tall wedge with a powerful flipper, which still fights on the live circuit today. The team has also won two events with their featherweight machine Skink. They have also fought in events with Puck, a round robot made from a tyre and they also bought Iron-Awe 3 in 2007 and renamed it L''' and then '''White Knight. This was for the team's other member Erik Martens to drive at events. Team Wind-Power fought with this robot on the live circuit until April 2016 when they sold it to Team Shock. Robot Wars Live Events The latest version of Pressure made its first appearance at the new Robot Wars live events in Colchester in April 2013. It fought Behemoth and TR2 in the first round of the main competition but it didn't last very long as it was flipped out the arena by TR2, but it did reach the final of the Tag Team competition held at the same event paired with Ripper where they finished runners-up to Kronic & Maelstrom. Trivia *Before entering Robot Wars, Team Wind Power had a business hiring bouncy castles and other large inflatables called "Wind Bags". The team were going to call themselves Team Wind Bags, but Robot Wars does not allow company advertising, so changed their name to Team Wind Power for Pressure's entry. *Pressure was the only New Blood Heat Finalist that did not compete in Series 6. References External Links *Team Wind Power website (Archived) Category:UK Series competitors Category:Extreme only competitors Category:New Blood Competitors Category:Robots from Essex Category:Robots with Lifting Scoops Category:Robots with more Wins than Losses Category:Robots with Spikes Category:Robots with Bladed Axes Category:Robots which are still competing today Category:Competitors in Robot Wars Live Events Category:Robots with Interchangeable Weapons Category:Robots that wore side skirts Category:Robots with a separate self-righting mechanism Category:Robots which debuted in Extreme 2 Category:Robots which only fought in Extreme 2